The knockout game involves "unprovoked attacks on innocent bystanders," according to police who have had to deal with it. A retired officer explained, "Normally it was a group of black males, one of which would strike him as hard as he could in the face, attempting to knock him out with one punch," says retired Sgt. Don Pizzo.

The victims are typically not robbed, but simply punched with no provocation. Such attacks have been reported in Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey.

The knockout game has claimed at least one life so far. In St. Louis this year, 72-year old Hoang Nguyen was walking with his wife, Yen, when four "young people" attacked. The attacker pushed the old man's face to the side to make a "clear target for his fist," recalled his wife.

Nguyen was punched so hard that he fell to the ground and struck his head.

Then the attacker turned on Nguyen's 59-year-old wife, punching her so hard that she suffered a broken eye socket. She could only watch as her husband was then kicked repeatedly. Hoang succumbed to his injuries later that day. A young black male, 18-year-old Elex Murphy, is charged with first-degree murder.

Not exactly a whole new thing. This game, and plenty of other stupidity, was already around when I was a kid, let's see, like 40 years ago... Oh, and it wasn't "black males" doing it (we didn't have a lot of those in Hamburg, Germany, back then ), just youthful members of the master race out for a good time.

These days, gangs of kids in Germany (incl. Germans and others with an "immigrant background) are literally terrorizing the public transport systems in major cities at night, getting all liquored up and then going on the prowl to kick some serious ass.

The attacks can be completely unprovoked, or for some minor "diss" like "Uh, could you please put out your cigarette..." Over the last 12 months, three people have died in attacks of this nature, with a few others beat into a coma, and I'm sure a huge number of unreported incidents and injuries.

I mention Germany because it's interesting to me that we're seeing similar developments in youth violence in two different countries - but like Germany, all the US states that are mentioned have very stringent gun control (as far as I'm aware). Could there be a correlation here, as in less guns in the citizenry = more impunity ???

...the thrust of my question is this: Are attacks of this nature more likely to occur in locales in which the perpetrators do not have to worry about a ballistic response very much, since it is very unlikely that the intended victim will be armed with a ballistic weapon? Conversely, would the known presence of firearms within the general populace have a deterrent effect on this particular kind of, almost casual, attack? Or, is this type of attack as likely to happen say in Phoenix or Dallas or Albuquerque as it is in Chicago, Newark, or LA? I think not, but hey, I've been wrong before...

We had something similar going on here a couple years ago. Groups of kids would rear end a car at a stop light late at night and when the driver got out to exchange info they would beat him. Turned out to be part of a gang initiation. Happened several times but they never said much about it on the news.

Earlier this year in Chicago, a group of teens followed an elderly homeless man at a train station. One of the teens walked up to him and punched him in the face, knocking him out as the teen's friends laughed and mocked the man.

The exchange was captured on video and posted on a hip-hop site, where it got about a quarter of a million views within two days. The teen was not arrested because police couldn't locate the homeless man to see if he wanted to press charges.

The crimes aren't limited to big cities. In 2009, Adam Taylor had just entered a parking garage in Columbia, Mo. Surveillance footage from the garage showed a group of teens following him.

One of the teens attacked, punching Taylor and sending him crashing into a brick wall. A few seconds later, the others joined in, punching and kicking him as he lay on the ground. Taylor suffered bruising on the brain, whiplash and internal bleeding but survived.

Nothing new. That crap has been going on in Philly since the eighties. They used to target people that were unexpecting of trouble ( condition white ) like window shopping, waiting for a bus while listening to their favorite tunes on a walkman then, BAM! They were out. What was old is new.

These punks like to pick on old people and the homeless just for kicks.

The time will eventually come for some of them when some elderly 'former military man' with a killer instinct and concealed weapons_ will send someone to an early grave. What they are using is 'deadly force' in any legal definition…and a deadly response action might well be justified, provided the 'victim' is able to read the 'signs' of an impending attack.

If crossing paths with young punks, best to learn how to place distance in between.